Body found near site of oil platform fire

Vessels pour water on the platform where an oil rig exploded. (Source: U.S. Coast Guard)

An oil rig off the coast of Louisiana exploded Friday. (Source: KATC)

(RNN) - Divers have recovered a body near the site of an oil platform that caught fire on Friday, according to the Associated Press.

Houston-based Black Elk Energy, which owns the platform, hired the divers after the U.S. Coast Guard ceased their search on Saturday for two workers who went missing after the platform fire off the Louisiana coast, AP reported.

The body was found in about 30 feet of water near where the explosion happened. The name of the deceased has not been released pending notification of the next of kin.

Black Elk has 854 oil wells on 155 platforms in waters off the coasts of Texas and Louisiana, according to the Chicago Tribune.

According to the Associated Press, it is a production platform, unlike the Deepwater Horizon rig, which was drilling an exploratory well in mile-deep water well to the east of Friday's reported explosion.

The difference between an oil rig and oil platform are technical. An oil rig drills holes into the ground through mobile equipment, so the raw materials can be extracted. The oil platform is the second step, where the raw materials are processed before being sent to shore.

The explosion came one day after BP agreed to pay the largest criminal fine in U.S. history for the Deepwater Horizon explosion and oil spill.

BP announced Thursday it would pay $4.5 billion for the 2010 explosion off the Gulf Coast. Eleven workers were killed in the disaster, and two BP employees have been charged with manslaughter.

Deepwater Horizon spilled an estimated 4.9 million barrels – the equivalent of 210 million gallons – and covered an area of several thousand square miles. The estimate of oil spilled each day reached as high as 60,000 barrels.